Contagion

A friend loaned me his copy of the May issue of 'THE NEW REPUBLIC" and encouraged me to read the 20 page feature story of "Grim Reapers" written by Laurie Garrett.  "How the Trump and Xi set the stage for the coronavirus pandemic." is a sub title to the story. I read the whole article (in 2 settings) this afternoon and must admit some disappointment. It goes back to the animal market in Wuhan, China where the coronavirus may have originated and really traced the debacle of errors that has led to the pandemic. I'm not defending the tendency to see many "missed chances" after the fact but that is what it is. One of the major Trump errors was his ravingly discharging much of the pandemic preparedness team largely on the grounds that the Obama administration had taken pains to build up its ranks. The challenge before us is in the development of a vaccine that is effective in enabling us to return to a more normal life style. My latest count was 50,177 deaths in the US.